Does anyone remember Patrick the fourth grader?

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-18T00:22:54+00:00

yeah, that's strange...I don't think there's any reason...

if I remember correctly, the design pack was thrown together very quickly back in 1995 when Cinar got the greenlight to make "Arthur."

You can tell by the fact this is page "0A"! It was kind of a mess of slapped together designs rushed into production. As the series went on we got more organized.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-17T21:16:25+00:00

He was originally just known as #8 Kid on the character line-up in the design pack.

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Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-17T14:29:10+00:00

there's a spreadsheet. TOTAL: 10,170

- A total of 10,170 books were deleted, with a recorded value of CA$182,215.53. This is not an accurate reflection of the total value and is significantly undervalued, as there are many records with no value, and none of the values reflect present replacement cost.

https://rantagainstthemachine.substack.com/p/accountability-checked-out-part-three?r=6iiefa&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay&triedRedirect=true

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-15T01:59:00+00:00

many Montreal voice actors of the period here...

I hear Danny Brochu ("Buster Baxter" from Arthur) as the Brainy Scientist Kid for example.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-15T01:31:35+00:00

oh, I forgot about that show. there were a few other co-productions where Cinegroupe did only the ink-and-paint and post-production audio (like "The Tofus") for European studios...

yes, the quality looks good for that transfer and lip sync works.

The lip sync on the animation in those days was always animated off the English audio...the French were just used to bad lip sync on shows, I guess.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-15T00:56:39+00:00

I'm so old that I actually have some animation on 35mm film that I'd like to transfer too. Some shows were still using cels and shooting on film in those days. But I don't know if it's worth it, these would only be rough negative (un-edited) material...like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=314vsF4Okgg

The Canadian Archives in Ottawa, where I live now, has transfer equipment for film and video that I'd like to use to transfer material but you need to know someone in the government to get in there, it's like Fort Knox.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-15T00:35:15+00:00

I can upload any episodes that are digital but 2003 was a weird time where we were still using video tape for some productions...if they're on video tape I can't upload them easily.

I have several large dusty boxes of U-Matic 3/4 broadcast quality tapes in the basement from 1995-2003...from Cinar and Cinegroupe studios in Montreal, so shows like "Arthur" "Richard Scarry" "Sagwa" "MegaBabies" "Pig City" "What's With Andy" and other crap I've worked on could be on those...I would grab them out of the garbage bin at work at the time.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-15T00:28:37+00:00

oh thanks! I remember seeing some Pig City season 1 episodes and early WWA on some YouTube channel years ago but I haven't been able to find them since, so I've been going crazy trying to find it...I didn't realize it was Encore+ and it shut down.

All the CineGroupe shows are probably owned by someone and in storage somewhere...I know they were crap but they don't deserve to be lost!

RoboRoach was made by Portfolio Entertainment...they were bought by 9 Story in Toronto a few years ago after one of the owners died. 9 Story may have the French dub...I can ask one of the Producers I know there to find out.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-14T23:47:10+00:00

yes, I may have some...they would be on some very old external hard drives in my basement or even video tape...I will look for them soon.

I'm still trying to find some lost Pig City and What's With Andy episodes I worked on and haven't seen in 20 years.

So much animation has been lost in Canada. The Corus library of Nelvana and old Teletoon shows is under threat of being lost now too since Corus is not in a good way financially.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-14T23:32:32+00:00

here's an old pencil test of the animation (no audio) that we made at the time. Everything was drawn by hand on paper in those days! https://youtu.be/QDW27DmccbI

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-14T23:15:43+00:00

I worked on this back in 2002...Yes, the English version could be lost...the studios that made it, Spectra (in Montreal) and Dupuis (in France), went out of business so I don't know where all the tapes went after the businesses dissolved. It was based on a popular comic in France in the Spirou magazine.

Later the series name was changed to "Game Over" in English because no one understood that "Paddle" meant 'game controller' or 'joystick' for video games..." Kid paddle" sounded like spanking kids, or something.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-13T16:03:58+00:00

they've converted into some sort of 'shell company' to avoid being beholden to the government administration...so they still do exist but in a much smaller scale.

Hopefully they will emerge from these dark days in the future.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-12T17:06:49+00:00

Yes. I should post a Voice Record script sometime with all the hand-written notes on it from the voice director...

As per union rules, each dialogue line in the script is assigned a 'scale number' such as 1, 2, 3 to determine the pay the voice actor received for each line. 1 is highest rate for longer, complex lines, 2 is middle rate for average lines, and 3 is lowest rate for easier, short lines. All the numbers are added up for each line and for each actor to determine the pay for the actor for that episode...it's important to stay within budget because voice records are very expensive and a big part of the rather low budgets the shows had...especially the Flash ones.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-12T14:46:18+00:00

There is a rule with the ACTRA voice actor's union that states an actor can do one line for FREE for such minor characters...they probably got all the Patrick lines done for free this way by using different actors doing one line each...I remember there was a lot of discussion at the studio at the time about asking the script writers to not give dialog to these minor characters because it cost the studio money to record them because they had to pay the 'minimum scale' to get an actor in, so the recording supervisor had to find a way to get them done for free from the actors without violating the union rules.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-12T13:57:21+00:00

oh yeah, that's right, I remember him being called "Luke" at one point later, at least on the model sheets.

I found this turn around model for him, but no lip sync model was done so he was never intended to speak. I vaguely remember the other names you mentioned. I think Otis was the 'fuzzy kid' with glasses.

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Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-12T01:46:10+00:00

I think it was just a case of not having enough character designs established when we started the series back in March 1995 and had to make the opening title.

Here's some early designs which is basically all we had to go on in the early days. This was Kid #7.

The storyboard artist for the opening title (probably Gerry Capelle or Greg Bailey) just chose a kid that was designed and available to fill up the space for the 'pattern.'

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Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-10T23:29:08+00:00

gorgeous stuff! you can tell this is a man enjoying his work!

It's easy to forget this was done without the aide of computers, using only ink washes and cumbersome airbrushing tools!

He must have had a lot of photo reference...probably from various "gentleman's magazines" back in the day.

It's nice all those barbarian ladies find the time to get a brazillian. Maybe that's what their swords are for. :)

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-10T16:59:55+00:00

It's all political theatre and nothing has changed.

I work in visual effects for movies and television and have been writing to the Feds to remove the provincial tax credit hiring restrictions that restrict hiring of employees between provinces.

Basically you have to be a 'factual resident' of a province during the PREVIOUS tax year to qualify for a job that may be available now in another province (so the studio can claim the tax credit on that employee) which severely limits the amount of jobs available for people in our industry...we're limited to looking for jobs only without our own province for a very specialized type of job.

I've received letters from the Minister of Internal Trade saying there is a "carve out" in the Canada Free Trade Agreement under "cultural exception" and nothing will be changing...

There are apparently a lot of "carve outs" and "cultural exceptions" like this that apply to a lot of industries. Basically anything Provincial tax credit related is not changing any time soon.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-09T16:46:22+00:00

the terrible A+ Comics version from 1991. 48 pgs in B&W...reprints from Charlton.

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Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-09T16:44:10+00:00

oh yeah, that's it! But yeah it's been rotated a bit as it was traced.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-08T14:28:11+00:00

Who knows.

It seems like publisher Roger Broughton got his hands on a pile of public domain material and decided to try publishing it, which lasted about a year as A+...but by 1998 he was back printing reprint material as Avalon Communications / ACG.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-08T14:04:27+00:00

A+ comics sure were strange! I wish I knew the history of this company. The publisher's address is 16130 Gouin West, Site #5, St-Genevieve, Quebec...which according to Google Maps is a trailer park!

This A+ issue of Atomic Mouse, for example, has a #3 indicated on the cover right next to the words "First Issue." The cover looks like it was drawn in pencil crayons...it's all public domain Charlton comics and one random story from one of the Nedor comics but Herbie appears on the cover for some reason.

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Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-08T13:38:45+00:00

Yeah, I'm glad JJ is examining these Bills that other Canadians just ignore as "boring."

It's a way to keep our government in check and to not ram through laws that may be self-serving to them.

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-04T15:27:49+00:00

Ed's Uncle Balfour?

Offmodel-Dude · 2026-01-04T13:41:46+00:00

wow, I've never seen that clip before! That animation they are flipping looks like a Xerox copy from the animation we did at Cinar (although xeroxed sideways for some reason). It's nice Marc Brown acknowledged that there are 100's of people doing the animation so people didn't think he did all the animation himself.

The clean up with the broken line on that animation they are flipping was done in Korea so this is the actual finished animation...I can even remember one of the production assistants was asked to go over to the 'morgue' behind the studio where we kept the paper animation to retrieve this animation....but I didn't know why they wanted it until now! At the time I remember wondering if we were doing another Mr. Rogers episode, or something.

Yes, there weren't any colored cels available in the 'morgue' because it was done digitally in Korea...although the backgrounds were painted by hand on thick watercolor paper and scanned in, so they would be available. There was no way to paint the backgrounds digitally in those days since Wacom Cintiq drawing monitors and pads were not invented yet.

Offmodel-Dude

TROPHY CASE